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Polands leader in waiting plans Blair alliance

AN AVOWED admirer of Baroness Thatcher and Tony Blair is poised for victory in today’s general election in Poland, where a landslide for the right is expected to sweep away the scandal-ridden former communists who have run the country for much of the time since the end of the cold war.

Jan Rokita, 46, the Anglophile leader of the centre-right Civic Platform party, hopes to become prime minister. He has promised to forge an economic and political alliance with Britain, tilting the European Union’s balance of power in Blair’s favour.

“The UK has been blessed with the great fortune of the prime ministers it has had,” Rokita said in an interview. “You couldn’t ask for more than Thatcher followed by Blair, great leaders from the right and the left.”

Rokita, who is polite and careful with his words, is a breath of fresh air for voters accustomed to noisy politicians